


The Little Sorcerer

by lindenmae



Series: love in a churchyard [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-10
Updated: 2012-03-10
Packaged: 2017-11-01 18:35:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/359973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindenmae/pseuds/lindenmae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a ghost story but it is also a love story. Some romances are too tragic to survive, but some are strong enough to survive a lifetime and whatever comes after.</p>
<p>Eames died over a thousand years ago, betrayed by the man he thought was his one true love.  But he was wrong.  His true love hadn't been born yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Little Sorcerer

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sort of prequel to The Church Grim but some of it takes place during the events of the other fic so it's also a companion piece as well, I guess. This is from Eames's POV and it's inspired by [this prompt](http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/20092.html?thread=49856380#t49856380) on the kinkmeme. It's probably not at all what the OP wanted but the fact is I read that prompt and then wrote this fic soooo yea. Credit where credit is due. I alternate between being happy with this and thinking it's repetitive and awful. I'm not a huge fan of writing the same scenes from different POVs so that could be why I feel that way. Anyway, staring at it anymore isn't going to magically fix it so hopefully I'm just being a perfectionist and it's still enjoyable.
> 
> Some notes from the original fic- Arthur is a necromancer who doesn't actually do typical necromancery things. Eames is a [Church Grim](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Grim) and a werewolf, and Ariadne is not exactly [Bastet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastet)
> 
> disturbing imagery, minor OC character death

The churchyard is lonely. It is filled with lost spirits that hover on the border between this life and the next, unsure of how to find their way over to the other side. He’s not one of them and they make for bad company, so focused on their own metaphysical struggles. His place is in the churchyard, has been for many centuries. There is no other side for him, so he leaves these spirits be to find their answers on their own. Very few of them or their loved ones pull his interest anymore. He doesn’t know how long he’s been here, but at the very least a thousand years have passed. He’s watched the fashions change with the eras, from the leather and tartan wool he wore as a warrior when he was still alive to the illogically stiff and over-embellished costumes of only a few hundred years ago. He’s been confined to this church for a very long time. 

Sometimes he thinks of the man who cursed him to this special type of limbo, but even after a millennium those thoughts threaten to rip open his heart anew every time. By now he has mostly forgiven the betrayal, but the aching loss has not abated in the least. So many years have passed that he gave up counting centuries ago, but every night when the moon chases the sun from the sky, he is reminded of what was taken from him when he was bodily forced into a shallow grave and his life ended, his lungs filling with dirt as he screamed. 

He has restlessly patrolled the grounds of this churchyard ever since that day, a dark shade weaving between the headstones. He is the Church Grim, meant to protect this hallowed ground for the rest of time, cursed for eternity in the unholiest of ways. He barely remembers the name they called him by when he lived – Eames. He tries to remind himself of it every so often, but the feeling of recognition at hearing that name in his mind is fading. He remembers the name of the one who betrayed his true nature to the village though, the man who unwittingly brought this terrible fate upon him. Eames has watched generations of that man’s descendants lowered into the same soil that holds his own tortured bones. They have not all been buried here, out of pure spite Eames will not _allow_ them all to be buried here. Some have died elsewhere and been buried across the seas, but the line always returns, drawn here where their magic originated. These are the ones that are not allowed to rest in this graveyard, the ones who bear the same gift that doomed him, beginning with the original sorcerer.

_Artair_.

Eames was overwhelmed by the pain at first. His howls of rage and agony filled the nights, carried on the wind. He rang the bells endlessly, yelling out his grief amongst the tolling clangs. The last image of his living life, burned into his mind, was of Artair’s terrified face and his hands reaching desperately for Eames, his body held back by the warriors that had once fought at the side of the man they were murdering. It took a long time for Eames’s broken-hearted rage to be overwhelmed by the loneliness and the despair, long after Artair was himself dead. He came to Eames just once after that fateful day that separated them forever, desperate and weary, almost destroyed by his guilt. But Eames felt no sympathy for the man’s struggles with his conscience or his powers. There was no room for forgiveness in his shattered heart. Eames truly became the Grim that day, embracing the authority he at least had over the grounds of the church. 

In life, Eames had been a lycan, pulled by the moon to change his shape from human to wolf. What had been a burden when he lived, a secret to be kept, became a boon now that he was nothing more than a spirit. The very thing that had gotten him buried – his powerful canine form – became his greatest weapon. He chased Artair away before the sorcerer could properly apologize, his body hidden by the shadows, but his teeth and claws ever as sharp and his growls loud in Artair’s ears. Artair never came back.

Eventually the villagers became aware of their mistake in choosing a werewolf for the protector of their church. They were driven mad by his mourning howls and the constant clanging of the bells. Those caught on the grounds of the church after dark did not often arrive home with their sanity still intact. He made sure they felt his madness, that they were driven to breaking with fear of him. Slowly they abandoned their lives and the town they had built with their bare hands because of him. For a time he was left alone with the gravestones and, though his curse was not broken, the short-lived solitude brought him some peace.

Artair grew old somewhere far away and eventually he died and Eames felt it in his soul like a fresh wound. The church remained and Eames remained its guardian with no way to leave and nowhere to go. Rumors of the haunted church were forgotten and a new town sprang up with the church at its heart. Bodies were again buried within its perimeter and terrified souls began to wander the grounds until they were at last able to find their way. Eames never helped. He let the spirits be and they were barely aware of him, too absorbed in their own misery to have a care for his. Some of their stories were interesting enough to catch his attention but never for very long. Even the ones whose wailing eventually overpowered his own could not rouse any sympathy from one who would never know what lay in wait on the other side. The Church Grim would never know true peace. 

The towns grew larger and more populated and the rumors of terrors in the churchyard were again whispered into fearful ears. Eames’s sorrow had become muted over the ages but it still drove him, made him aware of every second he spent treading invisible grooves into the churchyard’s boundaries. He didn’t hide when the moon was high and even the church caretakers learned to avoid the land at night. Eames began to think of the church as his, the only thing he had. Every time one of Artair’s line attempted to cross the holy boundary onto Eames’s territory, he made sure his presence was known. Often they came believing they could atone for their ancestor and each time he sent them away with their hearts in their throats. Some he killed. Only the ones without Artair’s gift were allowed to rest within the church’s gates. 

Artair’s descendants came less and less often as time passed, as the world changed outside of Eames’s little part of it. They forgot what they were atoning for, forgot that they were meant to atone at all. Finally they came no longer. Eames did not mourn the loss of them. They were not forgiven for what their ancestor did. It was best that they forget him, forget the weight under which they and all of their children lived. Their own powers would continue to be their undoing. They did not need to beg the forgiveness of a ghost to avoid destroying themselves. It was a fool's errand and Eames hoped he never saw a one of them again.

For years Eames was left to stew in his melancholy until his hatred of Artair subsided and twisted into a cruel longing. Artair was dead, broken and ruined for what remained of his life after Eames was entombed, wracked by guilt for what he’d done. His heart shattered into as many pieces as that of the man he’d betrayed. Eames felt no guilt for Artair’s suffering, but his heart was still broken, half of it gone forever, and he missed Artair terribly. The lost loves of others were nothing compared to his. He chased away every living descendent of Artair’s over a thousand years so that they might not prolong his misery. He did not wish to hope.

…

Hundreds of years have passed since the last of Artair’s line dared step into the cemetery when Eames first sees the man. He doesn’t come through the gates initially, instead waiting patiently outside them as mourners come and go. There is nothing inherently special about him, but he is familiar because through his veins runs the blood of Artair, diluted by time. Eames waits in the bell tower and watches the man, knowing that at some point he will take the step, but not knowing what for. This man does not have the gift. Eames will let him pass if his reasons are innocuous, but unlike so many of his relatives, this man is hesitant as if he knows something the rest of them had forgotten. 

By the time the man makes his move, Eames has grown bored of watching him. He is distracted by the bells when he _feels_ it – footsteps on his grave. His growls rumble like thunder over the grounds as he races to the north side of the churchyard, an anger long forgotten suddenly renewed. Only Eames knows the location of his bones and he does not appreciate any type of living or dead thing trespassing over them. But when he arrives at the location, the man doesn’t seem to know where he is exactly, only that he is close enough to call the Church Grim to him. Upon sight of Eames’s great black mass, lips curled back in a fearsome snarl, the man falls to his knees and bows his head in supplication.

“I am sorry to intrude on you, great Grim. I only want to atone for the sins of my ancestor. I don’t want to cause you any grief, but I give you my apologies. Whatever they’re worth.”

“They are worth nothing.”

The man looks up, startled at Eames’s voice, but determination is clear in his face. “ Please.”

Eames snorts in derision and crosses his arms over his now human chest. “You have no powers. What do you want of my forgiveness? What do you even know of the crime that was committed against me?”

The man bows his head again, but keeps his eyes turned up on Eames’s form. He doesn’t tremble. “My name is William, and you’re right. I’m not a necromancer, but my father was and it drove him mad. As it did his father and his father’s grandmother and so on. It’s a curse. A curse that my son also carries.”

“Your family has forgotten me. They have forgotten the burden they carry because of what your ancestor did to me.”

William shakes his head. “The story has been passed down. It’s more a myth now, a cautionary tale like the bogeyman, but I believed it. I still believe it. I can’t speak for my ancestor, but I am truly sorry for how you’ve suffered. I would take your place to spare my family if I could.”

“But you cannot. And you are well aware of that, so your offer is empty, is it not? What is it you want of me, son of Artair? I have wasted enough of my precious little patience on you this night.”

William takes a deep breath and rises, head still slightly bowed. “I’m dying. I have a few months, maybe a year. My boy is still young, innocent. All I want is for him to be allowed to attend my service when I am buried. My wife’s family is buried here and much of my family as well. I studied my family history. I know there’s a pattern. I have no powers so I can be here but my son can’t even set foot on this ground. Please. Don’t punish my son for what his ancestor did. Let him be just as long as my funeral.”

In life Eames had not been cruel. Cruelty had become part of him because of wrongs done him. William’s eyes are wide and desperate, his intentions honest for all that Eames can see. Eames had no intentions of ever forgiving anyone, but William is young, too young and not a threat to Eames’s peace of mind. He can grant him this one thing.

“Leave my sight, son of Artair. I will give you this, because it is a selfless request. But let me not catch sight of you again until you have taken your last breath and your child ne’er again after that.”

William’s eyes water as he bows, his limbs lighter with having accomplished a task he had most likely thought impossible. Eames can see the man is ready for Death even if it shouldn’t be his time yet, and for the first time in ages, Eames feels sympathy for someone else. 

Eames pays little attention to time anymore, but he knows that William’s return comes far too soon. 

Eames watches the procession from his bell tower as he has so many before, but this day his heart feels heavy for reasons he cannot discern. It weighs on him as the ceremony goes on, until he is nearly doubled over with the pain of missing the part of himself that Artair had been. For the first time in a thousand years he feels Artair’s presence, not in the way that he can sense one of Artair’s line, but as if the man himself is actually there. But Artair _cannot_ be there. 

It is at the moment that his desperation has driven him out of the bell tower and almost into the crowd that William’s son tilts his head and sunlight hits his cheek. Eames is stopped in mid-movement. 

“Artair.”

The name feels wrong on his lips. This boy is not Artair. This boy is alive and too young and too many years late, but his face is Artair’s face and his power is Artair’s power. Eames has waited so long to see Artair again, believing he never would. 

He watches silently, his chest tight and breath lost, as the ceremony goes on. He cannot force his feet forward, the little boy’s presence too much for him to accept all at once. The little boy has power that has not been wielded in Artair’s line since the first sorcerer himself. Eames should have run the boy off right away but he made a promise and he will keep it. He allows the boy to stay despite the pounding of his heart and he rues the curse for burdening him with a heart and breath and blood but no life to live with them.   
William appears at the edge of the group, his face filled with sorrow but resigned. He had known his time was coming. He will go peacefully on. But first he stops by the side of his wife, kisses her cheek and brushes his knuckles along her jaw. She sobs quietly through it, unaware of his presence. But William’s son has the gift and while he has been glowering at the grave with all of the force of a child wronged, now he turns with wide and watery eyes, breaking from his mother’s grasp in an attempt to reach for his father. 

“Dad? _Dad_!” The boy tries to scramble away from the crowd, reaching for a ghost that no one else can see. Eames’s heart wrenches in his chest.

“No baby. Shh, my love. He’s gone, baby. He’s gone.” The boy’s mother pulls him back into her arms, wrapping him up tight and pressing her face into his shaggy brown hair. 

William looks longingly at them both, the boy staring wildly back, tears now streaking freely down his cheeks; then William turns to the shadows and acknowledges Eames and his grace with a nod. ‘Thank you’, he mouths before something in the distance catches his attention and he’s gone. The boy doesn’t notice Eames, consumed with grief as he is, and falls to his knees in the grass, never emitting another noise after he’d called for his father and been met with only silence. 

Eames clings to the shadows and follows the group to the gates after the funeral is ended, his eyes trained on the little boy, who looks all about the graveyard as he’s tugged through it by his mother’s hand. His grief had prevented him from noticing his surroundings before, but now that he’s seen his own father’s spirit, the boy seems to suddenly notice everything, every ghost that has not found its way yet. But the boy doesn’t notice Eames. It’s better that way. When he passes through the gates to the other side, Eames expects to never see him again and he’s content with that. He is.

…

He shouldn’t have been so naïve. Something about William had given Eames pause. Perhaps it had been the obvious love he had for his son, or perhaps Eames had grown tired after such a long time spent hating people who had not actually wronged him. Artair was dead and had been for a very long time, and truly, Eames had only been punishing himself by shunning the man’s family. The only thing he can believe when the boy comes back is that he was tired of his lot in life and that made him stupid. A thousand years he had spent keeping up his hatred, his anger, and he let it slip for one little boy. Maybe he had been wishing for Artair to return all along. Maybe he had shut out all of the apologies of a million of Artair’s ancestors because they were not delivered by Artair himself and that had allowed him to feel content in his refusals, because they never would be. Artair had tried and had been sent away and had never tried again though he should have. He should have spent every moment of the rest of his life facing Eames’s wrath and begging for forgiveness, but Artair ran and his line has suffered for it. Until now. Until this one little boy.

Eames is prowling the grounds, the bells having grown tiresome, when he becomes aware of the presence in his yard. It hits him like someone has reached into his chest and wrapped their fingers around his heart. Artair is long dead and not buried here, but Eames can _feel_ him, as strongly as he had the day of William’s funeral. He runs, lips curling back over massive incisors, to William’s grave where the dirt is still fresh. 

It is a nasty night and Eames’s growls mingle with the thunder to create a deafening crescendo just after lightning strikes so close that the entire cemetery is lit bright as day. The boy is there, sobbing softly in the rain over his father’s grave. For some reason Eames expects him to seem older, but hardly any time has passed, barely the blink of an eye for someone who has been forced to exist as long as Eames has. Either this child is supremely arrogant, desperately stupid, or William didn’t keep his part of their deal. That the child doesn’t seem to be aware of any danger other than the rain tells Eames that it must be the latter. The boy doesn’t know who Eames is because in the last month he spent alive, William clearly didn’t tell him. 

Eames should be furious at this small betrayal, but through the sleet he cannot take his eyes from the boy. He can’t be much more than a decade old, nothing compared to Eames’s millennium, but despite the stupidity in his current actions, the weariness in his face makes him seem far older. His eyes are swollen from crying and his hair is plastered against his skin in wet waves and his pathetic state is enough to keep Eames at bay. It is as if he can almost feel the boy’s pain, as if a connection exists between them. It’s preposterous but _something_ is keeping Eames from acting, from stopping the boy committing an act that will scar him for life. He keeps to the shadows and waits, maybe because he wants to see just how powerful this little son of Artair really is, or maybe it is Artair’s presence itself that is holding him back.

His hesitance doesn’t last for long.

The boy is powerful but untrained, something else William was apparently unable to do in the last days of his life. But that is unfair. Eames knows well that it takes more time than that to train a child, especially one that could have as much skill as this one. The sons and daughters of Artair before this child had required candles and spells and tokens to weave their magic, but Artair had not needed any of those things – the power within his body was so great, and the power thrumming through this child is just as strong. That is why as his chubby knees sink into the mud surrounding his father’s headstone, he has no tools but a trowel and his own two hands. With the right kind of knowledge, this boy could raise armies of the dead to do his bidding with barely the flick of his wrist. He is the exact type of strong that Eames has sworn to oppose. Just because Artair did not use his powers for evil does not mean that one of his lineage would be as noble. Eames should rake his claws through the soft meat of the boy’s throat and end Artair’s line here and now, but he can’t. He can’t and he doesn’t know why. 

The boy’s soft sobs, drowned out by the rain and wind, suddenly become screams that carry across the yard to where Eames hides in the shadows, and he digs the trowel into the mud as if he’ll be able to dig six feet deep to his father’s casket on his own. He screams until his throat must be raw and continues over that, until Eames can feel the boy’s power absolutely radiating from him in waves that reach across all of the graves. Eames knows he must stop him, before this idiot child raises every corpse in the ground and creates havoc. A hand curls out of the soil first, pulling it away in great chunks as it digs its way out. The boy’s eyes are wide with fear and curiosity at what he’s done. Eames does not reach the child before William’s body breaks free of the dirt and looms partially rotted over his son. But William’s soul is gone, crossed over, and this is nothing but a mindless corpse that does not know this child except as a master. Because the child was never taught to properly conjure, he has created a zombie and not brought his father back to life as he’d hoped.

His screams begin anew, marking his terror instead of his sorrow. He falls onto his back and attempts to scramble away from the corpse of his father, but the mud hinders him and he slips only closer to the hole in the ground. 

“Dad! Daddy, please! Daddy!” But the boy’s father is gone.

Eames bounds over the graves of others, feels them beginning to stir in their final resting places because the boy, in his terror and youth, cannot control himself. Eames’s paws are muddy but they leave no tracks and his growls begin to overpower the thunder as he runs. He made a mistake in allowing this favor to William because by doing so he inadvertently allowed a favor to Artair. The closer Eames gets to the boy, the stronger Artair’s presence becomes until Eames cannot doubt where it is coming from. He roars with fury as he takes one last leap and slashes his claws like sabers through the clumsy body of William’s corpse. The body falls back into its grave, the connection between it and the boy severed, and Eames lands with his two massive forepaws splayed on either side of the boy’s small, shaking shoulders. Eames snarls in the boy’s terrified face, his ribcage pressed against the boy’s trembling bones. 

_Stupid child_

He growls into the boy’s mind, certain the boy will hear him and by the way the boy’s eyes widen, Eames knows he has. 

“Wha- what. What are you?” The boy stammers, terror palpable in the air around them, but he attempts to feign strength and assurance and Eames is impressed despite his anger. 

_I should kill you where you lie for what you have done, little sorcerer. I am the Church Grim, the protector of this hallowed ground that you have desecrated with your devil’s work._

“No, no I – I’m sorry. I didn’t. Please. I’ll leave. I won’t ever come back. I didn’t know this would happen.”

The boy is terrified through and through, a feeling Eames understands. He was a child once too, half human and half wolf, all demon and scared of himself. Eames sees a lot of Artair in this child, but he sees something of himself as well and it is _that_ part that saves the little sorcerer.

_You know now. I will spare you. But you will not ever come back here. If I see you on these grounds again, you will die. Heed my warning, little sorcerer. NOW GO_  
Eames roars and his voice carries over the wind and the thunder and the rain and shakes the ground and the boy, still pulsing with energy, scrambles to his feet and runs. Eames doesn’t watch him go.

Several years pass since that terrible night, but Eames cannot forget the boy. He thinks of him every day, his mind consumed. He wonders if the boy has managed to kill himself yet, or if he has killed anyone else. Eames wonders if the boy really is Artair, and if he will make the same mistakes his ancestor made. He wonders if the boy will ever come back.

…

There are few spirits as aware of themselves as Eames is, but there is one – a man who has been bound to the body of an owl by some curse. Eames has paid little attention to the owl before now, but as thoughts of the boy refuse to leave him be, he gives in to his urges in the only way he can. He cannot leave the churchyard so he cannot find the boy himself and satisfy this insane curiosity, but he knows the owl can go and simply chooses not to. Eames would rather not owe the owl anything, but he’ll go mad again if he does not at least know if the child is alright. So, though it shames him, he asks for help.

“Owl,” Eames says, sitting beneath the large oak tree whose branches look directly upon the tombs of the family Fischer. 

_I have a name_

The bird ruffles its feathers, shaking the leaves on the tree, but doesn’t show itself.

“As do I. Shall we exchange pleasantries?”

_I would rather not._

“Wonderful. See how we already understand each other?”

_What is your game, Grim? Do not waste my time._

“Because it is fleeting? Do not delude yourself. You have all the time in world, owl. Same as I.”

_Speak your piece, spectre. You have no hold over me._

“Right. Well, I should not like to impose upon your pain and suffering. I have a favor I might ask of you.”

The owl spreads its wings and alights from the tree, landing in a soft arc on a tombstone at eye level with Eames’s human form. 

_Why should I help you?_

Nothing makes Eames uneasy anymore, so he looks the owl straight in its large, wise eyes.

“You are cursed as I am cursed. You and I made the same mistake in life by falling in love and we suffer for it now. But you can leave this forsaken churchyard, owl, and I cannot. I have suffered far longer than you. It is simple, what I ask.”

The owl tilts its head and clacks its beak.

_Go on_

“Years ago a boy nearly ruined whatever peace this place may have had by trying to raise his father. He nearly raised the entire cemetery. Do you remember?”

The owl’s eyes widen in excitement and it flaps its wings.

_The necromancer! I recall._

“I ask that you find him. Just… tell me that he is well and safe.”

_This is an odd request. If memory serves you threatened the child’s life last you met_

“Do me this kindness and do not ask questions.”

_My kindness does not come for free, Grim._

“Of course it doesn’t. Name your will, Owl.”

If owls could smile, Eames would swear this one is.

_If the necromancer ever returns to this cemetery and steps through those gates, you will allow me to request his help and if he agrees, you will leave him unmolested until he has released my love. You will let the boy help my Robert_

“Only if he comes through the gates of his own accord, then I will wait in my attack until he has helped you.”

_Excellent. And you will show me the location of your bones._

“No!”

_You will show me as insurance against our agreement.._

“Foul bird. I have ne’er broken an oath in my life.”

_Ah, but you are not alive, are you? Like I am not truly alive. Swear on your bones, Grim_

Eames hesitates, long enough to allow Robert Fischer’s nightly torment to begin, to see the way the owl cringes and attempts to curl in upon itself in its grief for the poor, mad boy. These two were some of the few spirits that had caught Eames attention when they’d first arrived, their pain so like his own. He’s watched the owl keep a constant vigil over Robert Fischer’s tomb and watched him suffer as Robert suffers through the last terrible years of his life every night. 

“You will begin searching for the boy immediately.”

_Of course_

“Then we have a deal, Owl.”

…

The boy is fine. Eames doesn’t ever learn his name or whether or not he is happy, but the owl tells him that the boy is alive and he’s well. He is teaching himself but there have been no more mishaps like the event in the cemetery. Eames is glad, oddly, and he tries to let it be and put the boy out of his mind but he can’t. The boy constantly haunts his thoughts. Dreams of Artair are all but forgotten in the face of this new, terrible obsession. 

The owl makes a yearly trip to find the child and Eames wants that to be enough. He thought, when he first approached the owl, that this itch within him would be soothed if he just knew that the boy was alright but he was wrong. Separation from the boy becomes an all-consuming ache and the information that the owl brings him does nothing to help him move on. He hates that a living _child_ has managed to infect his mind so, but there is nothing to be done. The owl gives him just a hint of the boy every year and Eames continues to pretend that he never wants to see the child again.

…

Mal Cobb is an interesting spirit. She catches Eames’s attention because of the scene she makes. Unlike Robert Fischer who is trapped in the cycle of his own death, Mal Cobb refuses to believe in hers. She is aware of time passing and life continuing on around her, but she truly believes it is all some great dream her family must wake up from. Eames doesn’t see much of Mal after she’s buried because the totem tying her to this plane does not seem to be her body. She rarely haunts her own grave, choosing instead to pester her family and make them miserable, believing she is somehow helping them. It’s very sad really. Her intentions are good but her methods are traumatizing. Eames thinks Mal may be too consumed with her own afterlife to care for anyone else’s and Eames understands. He’s felt that way for a very long time. It’s only recently, brought on the heels of a frightened little boy, that Eames has begun to show concern for his fellow spirits, namely the owl and poor, mad Robert Fischer.

Mal’s funeral is melancholy. The group of family and well-wishers that gather around her grave try mightily to remember her as she was in life, happy and lovely and bursting with brilliance, but they are too sad at having lost her and the weather is gloomy which doesn’t help. Eames hardly listens from his spot in the bell tower. Mal hovers around the edge of the funeral, confused and frightened, trying to catch the attention of her husband or her children or her parents. Eames barely glances at her. His eyes are glued to the lone figure outside of the gates, dressed in a dark suit and coat, watching the ceremony with tears in his eyes but refusing to come any closer. The little boy isn’t so little anymore, but he is still a boy, the baby fat just beginning to leave his face. He is maybe nineteen or twenty, skinny but not awkward. He glances up at the bell tower every so often during the ceremony, as if he can sense Eames there. From this distance, Eames can’t tell if there is fear in the boy’s eyes. He hopes there is. The boy should be afraid of him.

Eames watches him the entire time and the bells stay silent. He is the most beautiful thing Eames has _ever seen_. He still doesn’t know the boy’s name.

…

It is another ten years before he sees the boy again and each one feels as long as the first hundred Eames spent patrolling these grounds. He knows the boy will come back in the same way that he knows the boy is different from the ones who have come before him. It isn’t just his power either, or his lack of knowledge. He doesn’t know who Eames is because his father died too soon to tell him. Eames doesn’t know how this will affect him, except that something has ended. With this boy the line of Artair will truly forget their burden and Eames will be wholly alone. Eames doesn’t _want_ to see the boy ever again, but at the same time he _yearns_ for him.

Thanks to the owl he has known of the boy’s every step, even though he wishes he didn’t want to know. The owl has remained ever confident that this boy is the key to him achieving peace in the afterlife and Eames has been swept up in his belief. He knows the boy is near because the owl tells him so. Eames knows when he sets foot past the gates because he can _feel_ it. He stays in the bell tower because he has made a promise to the owl, who has fulfilled his end, but he listens and his hackles rise. The bells ring louder with his agitation and his growls fill the empty air though they are low, closer to vibration than sound. When Robert’s wailing begins, Eames actually hopes that the boy will be successful, that poor, mad Robert Fischer will be allowed to leave this plane for a peaceful one and that whatever curse has been placed upon the owl will be broken. 

He tries not to watch, doesn’t want to look on the boy’s face for fear his resolve will be broken. He is barely able to contain himself enough to wait, he so longs to be near to the child, and Eames knows he is not a child any longer. He should be nearly thirty years old and that makes him a man, but it is difficult for Eames to think of him as anything else. He has never thought to call him Artair again. 

The wailing dies and the cemetery feels lighter, like a fog has been lifted. Eames looks now and he is not disappointed to see the owl suddenly changing, morphing into the man he once was. Robert Fischer seems aware for the first time since he was laid to rest, his eyes bright and his arms around the man that Eames has only ever known as the owl. Suddenly he wishes he had taken the time to learn the man’s name, his story. But it is too late for that. They are finally together and they fade into the light before Eames can form any full thoughts of regret.

Eames leaves the bell tower and slinks along the shadows, growling low in his throat all the way. He knows that whatever comes of this night, it is an end. There is no more owl to watch over the boy for him and when the boy leaves the cemetery tonight, there will be no reason for him to come back. Artair’s curse may not end but its connection to Eames will. Eames doesn’t know why the boy is here, but it’s not for him. It unsettles him how much he wishes it was. He won’t let this night end without forcing the boy to face him, whether he allows the boy to go and live or ends things right here will be a result of the moment. He’s spared the boy twice before. He doesn’t know if he can again. 

The levity that had settled over the churchyard is gone. Whatever the little sorcerer has done since releasing the owl and Robert Fischer, it’s causing a disturbance and Eames is angry. He’s angry at himself for allowing this to happen, for allowing a child to disrupt a thousand years of understanding. He understood that his was an unbreakable curse. He understood that he would be restricted to this one plot of land for the rest of time. He _understood_ that his life was over the second they threw the first handful of dirt over his head. But this sorcerer has changed everything, including the way he thought. 

There is a storm brewing, dark clouds gathering in the night sky. The moon’s light is obscured, but Eames can see. A shriek pierces the brief calm that had existed since Robert Fischer’s nightly torture was stopped, and Eames knows that whatever the boy has come here for, he isn’t finished. Whatever his feelings for the sorcerer, Eames cannot let him try to destroy the churchyard again. He is older and stronger and if left to it, he’ll succeed this time. 

Eames barrels on in the direction of the scream, his heart thumping against his ribcage, his teeth bared and his paws heavy in the dirt. Eames sees the sorcerer first, sees the terror and desperation in his face, twisting his lovely features. Mal Cobb’s ghost is hovering before him and she’s furious, shouting over the wind that she seems to be creating with her furor. There is another man on his knees next to the sorcerer pleading with the ghost. Eames cares little for him. He is shocked by the sight of a _Bastet_ bearing down on him, her body lither and sleeker than his but just as large, her claws just as sharp. Eames snarls and braces himself for her attack, but the sorcerer acts at that moment, throwing himself at the ghost. Everyone is distracted except Eames and the sorcerer, who looks oddly ready for Eames’s attack, though still terrified and desperately clutching something in his hand. 

…

Eames watches the little sorcerer, sees the subtle hitch in the rise and fall of his chest that tells Eames he’s woken though he’s pretending to still be asleep. He is a handsome man, and he _is_ a man, not a boy at all anymore. Even unconscious and on the floor there is a grace about him that puts Eames off balance. He is lovely and somehow innocent. Despite the years that Eames has spent hating Artair and all of his descendants, he can’t bring himself to hate this man. He’s spared this little sorcerer as a boy twice and he’ll spare him again now. He can’t say why, what single aspect of this man has turned everything that Eames has held to be true on its head, but he can’t bring himself to hurt the sorcerer. 

He can’t say what will come of it, if the boy has felt the same pull that has been tugging at Eames all of these years, if when he opens his eyes he will like what he sees. He doesn’t fancy waiting any longer to find out though. 

“You’re in the church proper. No bones in here, boy. Nothing you can control. And you’re hardly injured, just a few nicks here and there. No damage to any major arteries so you can quit playing opossum.”

The sorcerer groans and pushes himself to a seated position, opening his eyes slowly. They are lovely eyes, dark and deep. 

“How did I get here? What happened to the Grim? Why am I still alive?”

Eames chuckles to himself, reminded of how brave the sorcerer had tried to be when he was still just a child.

“You’re a right inquisitive one, aren’t you? Well, at least your questions are simple enough. You were brought here. I _am_ the Grim and you’re alive because I haven’t killed you yet. Very nice trick with the Bastet there. Nearly caught me off guard, she did. Would have helped you out to have had her the last time. Of course your kitty-cat couldn’t save you, just distract me.” 

Eames moves closer as the man pushes to his feet, coming up behind him and pressing his nose to the sorcerer’s hair. He breathes deeply. He hasn’t given the little sorcerer the chance to look on him yet, unsure of how the man will react.

“Why did you come back here, little sorcerer? I saw you outside the gates when that woman was laid into the ground. You _know_ better.”

“I had to try and help her,” the sorcerer says and his voice is deeper than Eames would have imagined, deeper than Artair’s was.

“I won’t let you raise the dead on my land, Necromancer. I believe you know that already.”

“I wasn’t going to raise her. I was going to force her to leave this plane, but she doesn’t know she’s dead and her husband won’t let her go.”

“How very noble. A zombie maker with a heart of gold.”

The sorcerer turns, quick and sharp, startling Eames into stepping back. His eyes are wide with anger and with shock, like he was expecting something else in Eames’s place. Of course he was. Eames is standing before him as a man, but the last time he saw the sorcerer it had been as the black dog of lore. There are many different versions of the Church Grim mythos, but naked, human men are not one of them.

“Expecting something more along the lines of a gnome or a brownie were you? Maybe the kind of terrifying Sidhe that your nightmares consist of? Sorry to disappoint.”

“You’re a man,” the sorcerer says softly, reaching out as if to touch Eames, but aborting the gesture just moments before contact. It sends a shiver down Eames’s spine anyway. 

“It's easier this way to get through to little boys that ignore my warnings and think, because they are older and have grown handsome, I will hesitate to do my duty to this church.”

“But you did hesitate. I’m still alive and uninjured.” It is a fact, an observation, not hubris. The man is not trying to point out Eames’s failings, but almost seems as confused as Eames as to the fact that he is still breathing.

“There is something about you that gives me pause. At first I thought I was only taking pity on a wild-eyed child that I had hoped to never see again, but it seems I was wrong.”

“I’m surprised you remember me.”

“Unfortunately, I never stop thinking about you. So, of course I remember you. I’ve been waiting for you to come back.” There is nothing for Eames to be with the living man who has haunted him like Eames haunts the churchyard but honest.

Eames bites his lip and scowls at the floor, unhappy with the way this young man pulls at him. Eames wants to be near him, wants to spill his heart to him when he’s so easily hated all of the others. The sorcerer laughs, a sharp and quick sound, and Eames snarls. He took a chance being honest and he’s been made for a fool. It seems he is constantly making mistakes when it comes to this man. Eames crowds into the man’s space and grips his chin hard enough to bruise, hard enough to stop the laughter bubbling in his chest from escaping his mouth. The man only looks at him with wonder, as if with every moment of looking upon Eames, he is seeing him anew.

“You’re so warm.” He should be afraid and fighting to get away, but instead he pushes closer to Eames, like a moth drawn to a flame.

“I was buried _alive_. Not quite the same as the rest of these unfortunate souls, already cold when they entered the ground. Wasn’t exactly laid to _rest_ , was I?” For the millionth time Eames regrets what William failed to do for his child. This man knows nothing of the curse on his family or of Eames and he is not properly afraid. He doesn’t understand Eames’s suffering.

“What are you?”

“The Church Grim.”

“What _were_ you?”

Eames slumps, his anger fading in the face of his memories. So many years later and his fate still pains him. He was betrayed by his own village, people who had known him all his life and fought by his side. Men whose lives he saved on the battlefield the first to condemn him. But worst of all was Artair’s betrayal and it’s overwhelming to have to explain that to this man who looks so much like Artair, whose essence _is_ that of Artair, but is not the man who stabbed him in the back. He releases the man’s chin, caressing his jaw with the back of his hand and it feels so familiar and not at all like anything he’s ever done.

“A Lycan. A man and a wolf, and the best of both if I might say so. But I was also a thief and I killed livestock to feed myself when I couldn’t suppress my canine form. And when the villagers built their first church it just so happened to coincide with my unfortunate capture and death sentence. You can’t blame the villagers for thinking a werewolf would make a particularly powerful Church Grim. Especially not when they were right.”

His tongue falters on the words that would reveal this man’s history to him. For some reason Eames cannot bring himself to dampen what warmth is left in those eyes. He leaves Artair out of it, leaves this sorcerer’s own curse out of it. The man grows visibly agitated, anger and judgment flashing amber in his eyes. This is not the reaction that Eames was expecting. Pity perhaps or revulsion, but not anger on his behalf. He can’t help but wonder if the sorcerer would be so angry if he knew the truth of who brought the curse into being. Eames turns away to school his features, not wanting to give too much of his emotions away and when he turns back he feigns amusement, trying desperately to remain aloof.

“My fate upsets you?”

“It’s unusual.” The sorcerer plays too, just like he had twenty years ago when he was just a frightened child. He affects a mask, refusing to give Eames the upper hand even when Eames already has it, and Eames can’t help but admire him for his strength of will.

“Many things are. You, for example.”

Eames steps forward, seemingly pulled by some invisible string, and he kisses the sorcerer, sinking into the velvet depths of his mouth. Eames has not kissed a soul since Artair, no one in a thousand years, but he hasn’t wanted to either. He feels dizzy with the connection, especially when the sorcerer all but melts against him, kissing back with a fervor that Eames could not have expected. Kissing Artair had felt good and right, but kissing this man, it feels as if a part of Eames had been missing and had suddenly been returned to him. He feels whole for the first time in a thousand years.

“Tell me your name so that I might stop thinking of you as the scared little sorcerer.” It is with great reluctance that Eames pulls away but he must know. He has avoided this since he first laid eyes on a sad, scared child, but not knowing seems pointless now.

“Arthur.”

“Arrrthur,” Eames purrs. Of course it is Arthur. This man who looks like Artair and feels like Artair but is _not_ Artair, is _better_ than Artair, should have an equal but different name. “You don’t look like a bear, but I bet you’re as thick-skinned and hard-headed as one. You’re all claws and teeth beneath this soft exterior, aren’t you?”

“I’m not soft,” Arthur says. “And your name? So that I can stop calling you the thing of my nightmares.”

Eames laughs at the way Arthur turns up his nose, at the small dimples in his smile and Arthur’s grin only deepens. “I haven’t a name any longer, but when I was alive it was Eames.”

“Eames.” Arthur steps forward, cupping his palm to Eames’s cheek and this time it is Arthur who brings their lips together. There are so many factors that have brought them to this point, so many mistakes Eames thought he had made, but they’ve turned out not to be errors in judgment at all. There was something else working against him this entire time, maybe fate - maybe not. Eames knows he may only have this moment with Arthur and then may never see him again, but he knows at least one curse is broken. Eames’s punishment of Artair’s descendent s ends here with this man who has taught him how to love again.

…

Eames lets Arthur go. It is surprisingly easy to watch him walk away this time, the churchyard finally at complete peace, all the ghosts gone for the very first time. Arthur says he’ll come back, but Eames doesn’t believe him. Why should he return when all of his burdens have been lifted? Eames is at peace with that knowledge. He has forgiven Artair fully and finally and he truly wishes for Arthur to have a happy life. That is not something he can achieve attached to a cursed spirit and that’s okay. Eames will suffer on but he imagines it will be less painful now that his heart is open.

He is surprised when he feels a presence near his grave and he somehow knows the soil is being disrupted. Terror spikes through him and Eames has left his favored spot in the bell tower in the space of a breath. He skids to a stop and changes his form when he recognizes the intruder as Arthur. It has been a year since that fateful night and while that is not a long time for Eames, it is long enough to convince him that Arthur had rightfully moved on. 

“What is it you think you’re doing, darling?”

Arthur glances up at him and blushes in the moonlight but doesn’t stop digging. 

“From what I understood, you didn’t want me to release you from being the Church Grim because you think it’s the only place you belong, right?”

That night, when everything had calmed and the ghosts were finally gone, Arthur _had_ offered to set Eames free and Eames knew that Arthur had the power, but he declined. He had finally found peace within himself and to be truly honest he was afraid of what lay beyond. 

“That is absolutely _not_ what I said-"

“You’ve done your duty by this churchyard, Eames. There’s somewhere better you belong now.” 

“And where is that, then?”

Arthur finally stops digging, leaning upon the handle of the shovel and wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his forearm. He looks almost bashful, hesitant but eager.

“With me.”

The collar of Arthur’s shirt falls open, revealing a fang on a thong around his neck. Eames heart stills, blood roaring in his ears. _The owl._ He knew showing the owl the location of his grave was a mistake but he had so desperately wanted to keep some connection to Arthur that he had done it anyway. But Eames wants to trust Arthur. He _loves_ Arthur, in a way he’s never loved anyone or anything before, not even Artair.

“You’re not going to try to control me with that, are you?”

“Of course not,” Arthur spits, like the idea had never even occurred to him. Eames smiles.

“I think I might like it with you,” Eames says, running his fingertips over his own tooth around Arthur’s neck, then curling his fingers around the leather thong and using it to tug Arthur to him. “My little sorcerer.”

**Author's Note:**

> There will be at least one more part to this, but I'm thinking two. The next part will explain the relationship between Artair and Eames and how exactly Artair betrayed him. Obviously I wrote this series backward but in my defense I didn't know it was going to be a series when I wrote the first one.


End file.
